Finally finished season 3 of Friends at the Table, which I honestly found to be something of a slog. Marielda started slow, but it eventually won me over and it had a hell of a finale. Winter in Hieron unfortunately never grabbed me, even if the pace picked up a little toward the end. I'm excited to start Twilight Mirage, since I absolutely loved Counter/Weight, but I have a feeling that I'll probably skip the next season of Hieron (which I assume will be starting soon since they seem to be wrapping up TM).

I appreciated the deep-dive into sex distinction that Radiolab has been doing. Of course if you're already familiar with the SRY gene you'll probably mostly just be getting a review out of it. I, alas, have not been able to find a download of the house-style "gonads or go home" song that punctuates some of the episodes, as it may be the best part of it all

Iíve started listening to Hollywood Handbook, after their appearance on JJ Go last week, and I think Iím a fan? The best description I can offer right now is that it feels like if Flight of the Conchords was a behind-the-scenes Celebrity interview podcast.

Like the opening interviews in Comedy Bang Bang, if they extended to a full hour and you could tell the interviewee was playing along but you could never tell which part was a joke.

Itís one of the few shows where i can honestly say I enjoy the ad breaks, as they usually take the form of short improvised skits, ranging in tone from the saga of Santa Claus reuniting with his family and seeking revenge on Moriarty, to a Blues singer who brags about how sober he is when he drives.

The Live Comic-Con Special is particularly... noteable, few, if anyone, in the audience heard the podcast before and were unprepared for the kind of anti-humour the Boys get up to. So the show bombed, hard. So when they released it as an episode, they cut it like they were providing an audio commentary for an audio medium, and were explaining to the site see that all the awkward silences were just because the audience loved it so much that it was intimidating to them, the performers.

The show is just weird enough that I canít earnestly recommend it, but I do encourage listening to at least one episode and nervously ask ďSo... whadda ya think?Ē

I just started listening to Quest Quest. Itís another D&D podcast, but the players and DM are all funny and play well off each other. Also, the party is mostly women. There is a bit of the typical stuff where players have to figure out the rules, but they edit around it so that it pretty much always cuts to the DM reading the relevant rule then they continue on. The story gets going pretty quickly too. If youíre looking for more D&D audio and want a very pleasant podcast, check it out.

I enjoyed This Sounds Serious, the fake true-crime comedy podcast series that was recommended in this very thread, so when the feed lit up with a new entry I was excited. It wasn't actually an episode of This Sounds Serious, but rather a quick pod saying "we're working on stuff, but in the meantime check out this other story called Dr. Death". Then there is a 10-minute excerpt from the first episode of this other series, another true crime drama about a surgeon who killed and maimed some 30 people. And I'm listening to this thinking, "man they are playing this straight-laced, this is some really dark humor, I don't hear a lot of obvious jokes yet". Which made sense in the end, because it wasn't a comedy podcast, it was a real story. And I'm trying to find the humor in it like "yeah, those sponges sure were bloody after the operation, is this a joke?" It was not a joke.

I've just started listening to the Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project, and I'm already a big fan. The premise being that Andy Daly (comedian and CBB regular) is screening pilot episodes of Podcasts for Earwolf to pick up. And all of the podcasts he's been submitted were produced by characters Andy Daly played on Comedy Bang-Bang, like Dalton Wilcox (Cowboy Poet Laureate/Monster Hunter) or Devin DeVoe (porn-turned-childrens-programming director).

I think it's not as good as Counter/Weight or Marielda, but I think that's because of splitting the focus so much. Also, I didn't find Crystal Palace as existentially horrifying as Rigor or that knife. It's still probably the best actual play podcast, imo, and definitely the most progressive and inclusive.

Iím a couple of episodes into Twilight Mirage myself and Iíd agree that so far it isnít quite up to the level of Counter/Weight (though Iím already liking it a lot more than the second season of Hieron). Not quite sure how I would compare it to Marielda, becuase that season took me a while to warm up to, although the finale was dynamite. I will admit that Iím a little puzzled by the main theme for this season, which sounds like something youíd hear in an ad for senior vitamin supplements but is also somehow really good.

Season 3 of Dissect is finished and I have now listened to about 8 hours of analysis of Frank Ocean's Blond(e). I went in hoping to gain a better understanding of the work, which I find largely impenetrable, and on that front it was something of a success. I hadn't realized just how personal the album was - I tend to think of Frank as something of a storyteller, but here it seems like pretty much every track on Blond is autobiographical in some way. Understanding that doesn't always get me past the spacey or grating production of some of the weirder tracks, but it has increased the percentage of the album that I like from 25 to 50, give or take. I consider that a win, because Frank Ocean is one of my favorite modern artists and I was disappointed by how unapproachable I found this album to be at first blush. I'm still probably going to skip a bunch of tracks when I put it on, but at least now I can say I legitimately enjoy most of the first half of the album.

As for the podcast itself, well, I definitely have some quibbles. The host has all the charisma of a cardboard standee and the text is completely overwritten. In some ways I'm reminded of the older episodes of 99% Invisible; it feels like this guy needs to do the research and then pass the material off to someone else for editing and hosting. But Roman Mars got way better at hosting his show with time, so maybe that will happen here too. On the other hand, there are very few artists whose work interests me enough to warrant this kind of deep dive. If I ever decide I want to tackle the mountain that is Kendrick Lamar, I might check out some episodes of the earlier season where Cole goes over that album, but thinking about it is a little exhausting right now.

As for the podcast itself, well, I definitely have some quibbles. The host has all the charisma of a cardboard standee and the text is completely overwritten. In some ways I'm reminded of the older episodes of 99% Invisible; it feels like this guy needs to do the research and then pass the material off to someone else for editing and hosting. But Roman Mars got way better at hosting his show with time, so maybe that will happen here too. On the other hand, there are very few artists whose work interests me enough to warrant this kind of deep dive. If I ever decide I want to tackle the mountain that is Kendrick Lamar, I might check out some episodes of the earlier season where Cole goes over that album, but thinking about it is a little exhausting right now.

I am a big fan of Dissect and its format, but I had trouble getting into this season. Applying such a clinical approach to something so quiet and deeply personal created kind of a cognitive dissonance for me, whereas it felt more logical for something as intricate and technical as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It might just be his delivery.

I've been reading about this Barstool thing (for which, um, "yikes" is far too mild a term), and it turns out that I was wrong about PFTCommenter; it's not short for Paul F. Tompkins at all! Dude has a podcast and everything, how was I supposed to know?

Whoa. I saw an update on my feed but I assumed it was a new tour or promotion or something. I'm down for this. BTW, I love that I keep seeing Marc Evan Jackson everywhere these days (Adventure Time, Better Call Saul, The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine).